What Not to Eat Before You Sleep

While the conventional wisdom that you should never eat before bedtime has been challenged recently, there are still plenty of foods that can mess with your sleep (yes, most likely including that thing you're craving this very moment). We all know avoiding the caramel latte with four shots is probably a good idea, but the relationship between food and your sleep cycle is more complex than you might think. Aside from getting wired off caffeine, you also have to watch out for foods high in fat and/or calories, spicy foods, acidic foods and alcohol. Understanding how each of these can disrupt your sleep will help you make better decisions when you're looking for a snack to tide you over until breakfast.

• Foods that are high in fat and/or calories like fried foods and dairy products are generally a bad idea before bed. You may struggle to get comfortable when you feel overly full or bloated, and can even impact weight gain. These effects are amplified the closer to bedtime you ingest high calorie/fat foods, and in general you should try to maintain a two to four hour buffer between your last bite and the first time your head hits the pillow.

• Spicy and acidic foods carry similar risks to your sleep health, mostly due to how they can contribute to gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), more commonly referred to as acid reflux. To put it in the simplest possible terms, your esophagus is what carries food into your stomach and spicy and/or acidic foods can irritate it, leading to heartburn and general discomfort. These symptoms are worsened when you lie down immediately after consuming spicy and/or acidic foods as the contents of your stomach press up against the lower portion of the esophagus causing irritation.

• While a stiff drink might seem like a good idea to help you get to sleep, it actually can do a lot more harm than help to your sleep cycle. Alcohol is indeed a sedative, but any benefit derived from the drowsy feeling some people get after having a drink is quickly outweighed by a number of drawbacks, chief among them the negative impact on the quality of your sleep. You'll get less REM sleep and more light sleep, leading to frequent wake-ups and a disjointed night's sleep. Your best bet is to make sure your last sip is taken at least three hours before you go to bed.